I hope you’re all enjoying the last days of summer! I certainly am, trying to enjoy the last bit of warm days as the cooler weather sets in.

I just want to make a note about a slight change to this blog. Earlier I said I would blog every Friday. Well, I’ve decided to instead blog every Monday due to my schedule. I do have a busy schedule, and I’m hoping Monday would be much easier for me to write on this blog. So let’s see…

Anyway, it is that time for me to review the TV shows I watched since the last TV review post. Like many, I prefer TV shows over movies, and I’ve been active on my TV viewing (or Netflix, or live streaming, whichever method). Here goes on my reviews…

WARNING: spoilers up ahead!

MASTER OF NONE: I really did not like this second season. It started off being funny, but the part where Dev Shah started to fall in love with the engaged Francesca, I started to lose interest. That was the second time Dev got involved with a woman already taken (remember Claire Danes’ character in Season 1?), and I just felt uneasy with it. Yes, there was chemistry and love can be complicated. But, I just…I don’t know, felt uneasy. I kind of hope he and Francesca do stay together, but at same time I do not. Let’s see what Season 3 brings.

ORPHAN BLACK:

Image via Flickr via Creative Commons

The final season to one of the my favorite shows! Tatiana Maslany’s acting was great as always; it never fails here. I liked how there were flashbacks to when Allison and Helena learned they were clones. I’m glad Cosima and Delphine are still going strong. I also liked how at the end, they talked about the many clones all over the world, and the best part was the humbling of superbitch Rachel. The sad part was obviously when S was killed. I really like the actress, Maria Doyle Kennedy, and looking forward to see where she’ll pop up next. Heck, I’m ready to see where Tatiana will pop up next. This is not the last of her great acting. She’s got a lot to do in the future, and I’m looking forward.

HOUSE OF CARDS:

Image via Wikimedia Commons

Whoa, this show is something else.However, I felt this season, HoC got in over its head. There were too many deaths and “accidents” that can’t not be linked to Frank and Claire Underwood. Yes, it was obvious those characters would have met violent ends; that’s the way the show and the Underwoods’ work. But I felt this time it was overdone. And now the Underwoods are going to go against each other? Is Frank going to somehow kill Claire and make it look like an accident? Are these two going to kill each other in the end? Eh, it just seems like too much now. The psychopathy of the Underwoods just seems overdone. But that’s just me…

GAME OF THRONES: What would a review post be without Game of Thrones? Like many, I obsessively watched and overanalyzed the show this season, and feeling devastated that it won’t be back until 2019 or so. But I’m glad Jon Snow’s parentage and real identity has been revealed in full, just as we take a look at the actors’ ass during an incestuous sex scene (sorry, I had to go there!). I’m also thrilled that Littlefinger has finally been killed off, by symbolically getting his throat slit. I, like many, got a little nervous with Sansa and Arya fighting. But I also read the many articles about those two, and was relieved to remember Arya had handed Sansa the dagger, and therefore was not going to kill her older sister. Whew!

But now there are only 7 episodes left for GoT. I can see the writers and producers cramming things into those episodes and not doing such a good job at it. I mean, I could see the final season for GoT be really rushed. If this past season was rushed, imagine what the next and final one would look like. But we’ve got a long wait…

SHAMELESS:

Image via Wikipedia

This is another show that I recently joined on the bandwagon. I binged on this Showtime show late last year, and this June, watched its seventh season on Netflix. I really like it, because the show is simply shameless. I mean, the characters have no shame! From Debbie raping a guy and then aimlessly getting pregnant, to Lip’s self-destructive ways, the characters live up to the show’s moniker. But it does it in a funny way! Like, there’s humor attached to the lousy behavior of everyone on the show. Amazing how that’s been worked out. I also like how the show brings to light bipolar disorder through Ian. Other programs, like Homeland and the movie Silver Lining Playbook, don’t treat bipolar disorder with much education and kindness. Shameless does, and I give it a lot of credit. I suspect next season will be the last, as it will be the eighth season. Looking forward to it!

While I was reading “On Writing” by Stephen King, I was also reading the final book of Jacqueline Carey’s trilogy about Phèdre nó Delaunay, the famed courtesan of Terre d’Ange, an alternative look at the history of France and the rest of the world. You may remember that I didn’t particularly enjoy the second book in this trilogy, but I just had to find out what happened to certain characters in the third book, “Kushiel’s Avatar”.

Click here to buy book on Amazon

Like its predecessors, “Avatar” is long, and slow moving in some parts. There’s a lot going on, a lot of history, and a lot of traveling. There’s a lot of characters, but only some are hard to remember. It’s a wild journey here, that includes some moments that are tender, fascinating or intense. Even more so, there are moments that are difficult to read because of the brutal abuse done to Phèdre and other characters. Remember, Phèdre has been chosen by the angel-diety, Kushiel, to experience pain and pleasure as one. And she has a mission to fulfill as the deities of Terre d’Ange guide her to stop an evil presence, so her tendency to experience pain and pleasure come in handy – for better or for worse. For this reader, it was for worse.

At the same time, Phèdre is on her own quest to free her childhood friend from a curse. This quest leads her to find the true name of God from a forgotten tribe and to risk her own safety by revealing that name at the appropriate time. While we never know what the true name of God is, we are hinted it through translations from various people who overheard.

The book then ends with a festival in Phèdre’s honor, who is at peace after nearly 15 years of defending her country, freeing her friend, seeing the world, and enduring pain that she sadly found pleasurable at times.

I found this book to be more entertaining than “Chosen”, mainly because Phèdre is more tolerable here. She is not the arrogant, foolish character she was in the previous book. Here, she is more humble, though probably because she endures suffering beyond many people’s comprehension. I still found her to be boring, however. I don’t know, Phèdre is just not an interesting character to me. She seems flat at times, with no real personality. I found many of the other characters, particularly Joscelin, Queen Ysandre, Hyacinthe, Kaneka, and the villianness Melisande Shahrizai, to be more fun to read about. I guess it had something to do with the narrative. Maybe Phèdre just isn’t a good narrator for her story, but she is for others.

The philosophy of this trilogy, love as thou wilt, also doesn’t seem to be fully shaped. Maybe I didn’t get it or something, but I also think because Phèdre is not an interesting character, it is hard to see what love as thou wilt means. I do like how the author, Jacqueline Carey, is trying to create a world where love is the law, and love rules. Or at least I think she is. I don’t know, I just felt confused at times.

What I did love about this book was the numerous countries explored here. Places that are obviously Egypt, Iraq, Ethiopia and the Congo, are lavishly described and one can imagine these places as being very beautiful – or in the place we know as Iraq, very ugly and horrifying. I found it interesting while reading this book that the place we call Iraq, but known as Darsanga here, has a great evil coming from it that could destroy the world, and yet in our world, ISIS is the great evil hurting the world, and its coming from Iraq. Not that I think Jacqueline Carey foresaw the future, but what irony!

Anyway, the book ends happily and peacefully. The best part of this trilogy, for me at least, were the many countries and cultures explored and reimagined. I also liked Phèdre and Joscelin’s enduring love. In the previous book, those two were strained, and Joscelin did a lot of pouting, it seemed. Here, he is more vibrant and stronger, and you could feel the love between those two from the pages. It’s real, with its ups and downs and trials.

There are more books about Terre d’Ange from Jacqueline Carey, but I am not sure if I would read them. I feel as if I’ve explored the world she created enough, and its time for me to read about other worlds. It’s been a great journey, really, even though I wished Phèdre was better guide. I still recommend this series, though I do warn the reader about its shortcomings. What I believe is as soon as a reader finds what they like about the adventures of Phèdre no Delaunay, they’ll be able to read past what they don’t like about her story. One thing for sure, they’ll be in for a wild ride!

At long last, I finally read and completed Stephen King’s “On Writing – A Memoir of the Craft”, his part autobiography, part how-to-write book which has been widely received. I had heard many great things about this book, and earlier this year, felt it was time for me to finally learn from The Master.

Click here to check out the book on Amazon!

This is a great book, even though many have said so. But I want to re-echo it, this is a great book if you want to learn the craft of writing. Here are a few things that stood out for me:

“You must not come lightly to the blank page”:I like how Stephen King talks about we writers must approach the blank page like we’re “ready to kick ass and take down names”. Or even, “with nervousness, excitement, hopeful, or even despair”. He’s, of course, very passionate about writing, and he’s the kind of writer who was born to write. People like that would see flakey writers as insulting to the craft of writing. That is why he says, “its writing, damn it, not washing the car or putting on eyeliner.” True, very true.

Reading King’s tough words made me wonder how exactly do I approach the blank page. I certainly do not take lightly. But I am one of those who does with the “nervousness, excitement, hopeful, or even despair”. I am not the kind looking to kick ass, though I could imagine it would be fun to do so!

“The best form of dialogue attribution is said”:Yeah, I’m one of those writers who feels – and even likes – to use attributions like asked, shouted, whispered, etc. I just feel like it gets rid of the repetitiveness of said. Sure, it might be OK to do that, but I also get what King means. We as writers are supposed to allow our readers to decide for themselves what is going on. In this case, our readers are to figure out what tone or level of voice characters are speaking in. Using other attributions would be like holding a reader’s hand, or rather, telling rather than showing. We all know the main rule for writing fiction: show, don’t tell.

“I don’t believe any novelist…has too many thematic concerns”:This is interesting because for anyone who’s ever sat in an English Lit class, themes are one of the biggest topics when discussing a novel. King brings this up, but makes it clear that it not important, or as he puts it: “no big deal”. The themes in his novels are simply “interests which have grown out of my life and thought, out of my experience” as a human being. He also adds that “good fiction always begins with story and progresses into a theme”, and not vice versa. I found this to be a relief because whenever I write, I worry about themes. I remember that issue being drilled into my head in high school and college, and at one point, it scared me away from any fiction writing.

Its unfortunate that many English teachers are forgetting the important thing about fiction: it is sometimes just a story.

But only sometimes. Even King, when he ends off this part, says, “once your basic story is on paper, you need to think about what it means”. Themes are inevitable, but they are not the point of writing a story.

“Paragraph, not the sentence, is the basic unit of writing”:I like this because this is something I’ve noticed when I write. I put a lot of thought into where a paragraph starts and where it ends. Sentences, particularly their content and length, don’t worry me as much. Paragraphs on the other hand, kind of stress me out in a way! I always worry if they’re too short or too long, or if one short paragraph should really be on its own or be part of a larger one. I even worry if I have too many short paragraphs going on.

But I worry because I realize how important a paragraph is. As King puts it, “it is a marvellous and flexible instrument…you have to learn the beat”. Yep, paragraphs are the rhythm to a novel.

Anyway, I highly recommend Stephen King’s classic book on the craft of writing. Please do read this you haven’t already. You’ll learn a lot and you’ll be relieved a lot. Either way, it is the book all writers need to have on their shelves, with many pages dog-earred.

In recent weeks, I viewed the art house film, “A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night”. In case you haven’t heard of it, this Ana Lily Amirpour directed movie received a lot of buzz for being a Farsi-language (which is the main tongue of Iran) art house flick about a vampire in a Western-style city. In fact, the movie’s tagline is “The first Iranian Vampire Western”.

Click here to learn more at IMDB.com

Even though the film is done in Farsi, it was not shot in Iran. Instead, it was made here in the United States by a cast and crew of Iranian heritage. That is quite obvious when you see the sex scenes and female nudity. I mean, this is not a movie that the Ayatollah would approve of!

“A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night” is about a fictional place called Bad City. And bad is the best word to describe it. Drug dealing, spousal abuse, prostitution, and just general unhappiness and misery all around. Having the film shot in black and white seems to add to the sadness of Bad City, along with the artsy intentions of the director.

But while the residents of Bad City are dealing with their unhappiness, they seem unaware of a particular young woman who is by herself at night. They might notice her, because this is supposed to be Iran, and in that country, a young woman being by herself at that hour is taboo. She may be up to no good. And this girl is. She’s a vampire.

But she’s no evil vampire. Instead, the young woman seems to use her thirst for blood as a way to punish those in Bad City who hurt others. She kills and drinks from the drug dealers, the pimps and all others who abuse women. Come to think of it, this characterization of a female vampire seems to be a trend with the genre. The film, Byzantium, had something similar. And one of my author buddies, Francis Franklin, wrote a book that had the same idea. It’s like female vampires are the new female warriors against male oppression, and other injustices from patriarchal societies.

At the center of “A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night” is Arash, a young man who’s father shoots up heroin, owes money and abuses his girlfriend. The vampire watches this very closely, and it is while she’s watching that Arash meets her and falls in love. She becomes a beacon of light for him in his unhappy existence in an unhappy place. This is rather unusual yet touching vampire romance, although the love story is a secondary storyline here. Arash is basically a rebel in Bad City in a sense that he yearns to escape its misery and live a better life.

Overall, the film is about how rough Bad City is and how this vampire (who has no name) uses her vampire ways to bring justice. It’s an artsy, indie flick that brings together Iranian social issues, vampire fascination, and classic American flicks about teenage rebellion. It doesn’t have a driving storyline, but it is interesting to watch. The real catch is the Iranian aspect of the film, which why it received such a buzz among indie flicks recently. For one thing, I liked how the vampire’s chador seems to represent both Iran’s strict clothing laws for women, and the capes traditional vampires wear. It’s actually a cool combination when you think about it.

I recommend this film if you like foreign language flicks, indie art-house style films, and a feminist take on female vampires. If you love cinematography, you’d love this film. But if you are looking for a driving storyline with intense climaxes and drama, you won’t see too much of that here. But it is something different from many vampire and Iranian films out there, so this may be a movie worth watching for you!

I had heard about this lesser-known vampire film on Anne Rice’s Facebook page because the director, Neil Jordan, directed the movie based on her classic, Interview With The Vampire. But I didn’t see too many promos for it, so I guess it was one of the movies that wasn’t expected to be a huge hit. Maybe Hollywood feels there are too many vampire movies out there.

Click here for Byzantium’s page on IMDB.com

But it appears the word is spreading about Byzantium. I’ve seen a few blog posts about it, particularly from Francis J. Franklin and more recently, from Irish author Emma Meade. The latter’s post got me very interested because the movie was next on my Netflix queue, so I was already prepared to anticipate a good movie.

Byzantium is about two mysterious women who say they are sisters. But in truth, they are mother and daughter who are also vampires. They’ve spent two centuries roaming England, hiding and finding places to live, while feeding on humans. At the start of the movie, the mother, Clara played brilliantly by Gemma Arterton, commits murder and has to take her daughter, Eleanor, wonderfully done by Saoirse Ronan, to a seaside town to hide from the authorities. Also from the start, we see that the mother and the daughter are very different, despite living side by side for 200 years. Clara is a vivacious sex worker while introverted Eleanor prefers writing. They also have different attitudes to taking human blood. Clara has no qualms taking human life in order to feed while Eleanor prefers drinking from those ready to die. Basically, Clara enjoys being a vampire while Eleanor does not.

As the movie progresses, we see flashbacks to how these two women became vampires. We first see that Clara was a simple woman who had lived in the very seaside town she is now hiding in. That is, until a British military officer forces her to be a prostitute in a brothel, where he could use her whenever he stops by. Eventually, Eleanor is born to Clara, who puts her in an orphanage, hoping that her child has a better life than the one she has now.

From there, we soon learn how Clara becomes a vampire, and we then see that this vampire story is a feminist one, particularly from a mother-daughter perspective. That is because these two women are struggling to survive in a male-dominated world – both ours and the vampire world. Pardon the shameless promotion of the work of a fellow vampire author, but I noticed some similarities between Byzantium and Francis J. Franklin’s book, Suzie and the Monsters. Both are about female vampires trying to live in a patriarchal world, and it was male abuse of women that caused the women to become vampires. The fact that Clara is a stripper at the beginning of this film sounded familiar too.

Byzantium starts off slowly, which may make it a little boring for some. But it reflects Eleanor’s brooding nature. Besides, her choices leads to the climax of the story, which is quite nail-biting. The ending was good, and I felt it left room for a sequel, though I don’t know if one would ever be made. One thing I really was intrigued by was how humans become vampires in this story. It’s very different from the usual blood-exchange that many vampire stories have (even yours truly does that, though with no apology), and the originality of it is cool to watch. Also, these vampires move around easily in the sunlight and have no supernatural powers, making Byzantium refreshing among vampire movies.

Overall, Byzantium is worth the growing buzz around it. Hopefully, it will be one of those sleeper movies that fade quickly from theaters, but word of mouth makes it successful.

I was interested in seeing “The Mortal Instruments – City of Bones” when it first released earlier this year. I was curious about it’s urban fantasy theme with human-angel hybrids with some vampires thrown in, so I watched it on Netflix this week.

Click for the film’s page on IMDB

Now, I’ve never read the books, so I may be missing out on what “The Mortal Instruments” is all about. But at the same time, I felt the first half of the movie moved too fast. The scenes ran quickly and I felt as if a lot was thrown in. I understand the first book of the series is long, so to squeeze a thick book into a two hour movie is always a challenge. But I wish things went slowly at this part.

I really liked the whole human-angel hybrids hunting demons, but I felt it wasn’t developed enough. While Jace, played by Jamie Campbell-Bower was telling Clary, played by Lily Collins, to never trust anyone, I felt that idea could’ve been expanded more because I got curious on what it is like to not know who is a demon or not. I also liked Clary learning more about who she is, but it was rushed and hard to absorb that way. The possible romance between Clary and Jace was kind of forced to me, as well as Simon and Clary. I liked learning about Clary’s mother, portrayed by Lena Headey who also appears in “Game of Thrones”, and how she fled Clary’s father, Valentine, played by Jonathan Rhys-Myers.

But overall, I felt the movie wasn’t developed enough and I wasn’t sure if I understood everything. I thought there was too much of an emphasis on Clary and Jace. I mean, if the story was really about defeating Valentine and having Clary understand who she is, why all the YA romance that was never meant to be anyway? Probably because Jamie Campbell-Bower is popular with teen girls (Although I have to admit he is good eye-candy).

I don’t know if Jace and Clary are really brother and sister. I heard they actually are not, but if they are, yeah incest is twisted, but Clary’s mother did it in a past life (wink, wink on that Game of Thrones reference)!

I will see the sequel because I like the angel-demon world that is largely invisible to ours. The fight scenes are awesome and the acting is pretty good. However, does Jonathan Rhys-Myers play the same character in all his projects?

Vampire novels these days seem to be very similar. Many of them involved a woman falling love – or lust – with an alpha male vampire. Sometimes the female protagonist can be a kick-ass, superwoman type, while other times her life revolves the man she is focused on.

Well, how about a vampire book that is almost entirely different from all the others out there? As in, where the men aren’t the heroes and women can be someone’s cup of tea?

British author Francis James Franklin likes to explore a vampire’s struggle between it’s monstrous nature and the humanity of it’s previous life. He also likes to explore female sexuality, especially in the realm of lesbianism.

Before you jump for joy or get enraged over more lesbian chic, I say relax. Taking a look at Franklin’s blog shows he is not exactly a Howard Stern-like drooling over girl-on-girl action. He admits that women’s sexuality can be powerfully dangerous and erotic. Too bad patriarchal oppression kept down powerful women for many centuries, and it looks like he explored how that can affect a woman in his self-published eBook, Suzie and the Monsters: A Fairytale of Blood, Sex and Inhumanity. He also brings his exploration of a vampire trying to remain human while being something inhuman to this book.

What drew me to this book were the reviews on Goodreads. I saw that the ratings were low for Suzie and I wondered why because Franklin seems to analyze issues pretty well. When I checked them out, there were many complaints of the explicit sex in this book. Many felt the scenes were far too graphic, and there were other complaints about the POV and the unconventional plot. But some described the main character, Suzie Kew (yes, that is her name), as a strong woman in charge of her life, yet mildly self-hating because of her vampirism. Intrigued, I decided to check out the book myself.

First off, yes, there is a lot of sex in this book. A lot! But I can attest that this is not erotica, like some have said. Erotica is when there is more sex than plot, and the sex goes on for pages or paragraphs in a very graphic manner. Most of the time, the sex here is just matter-of-fact. But there are scenes that make me uncomfortable, particularly one that happens in the very first few pages where Suzie rapes a girl in a club bathroom stall. Yeah, not exactly a protagonist to root for and I was very disturbed by that.

Click here for Amazon link

However, I admit I was interested in learning more about Suzie, who she was and where she came from. She didn’t seem psychopathic nor was she an angel. There was also the promise of what she did for a living that hinted a plot. When Suzie is not out clubbing, seducing women left and right, working as a pole dancer at a classy strip club, and obsessing over high fashion and the aroma of coffee, she assists a private investigator in tracking down missing girls.

Although there wasn’t much of a plot with that detective part – it was more like a side story the way it was written – it does offer a chance to get to know Suzie. With that, it becomes clear that this book is not a typical plot driven one, but a character study, and a statement on female sexuality and how women have suffered as second class citizens for centuries. As a woman who cares about women’s issues myself, I found it intriguing that a man will take on this feminist slant very well.

Throughout the book we learn about why Suzie is vicious and how she struggles with that. She has very good reasons to want to destroy all the monsters in the world (translation: men who brutally abuse women) but yet, she knows being driven by hate and vengeance makes her a monster, too. “And who would love me then?” she asks at the very last line of the story. Such is the conflict she’s been dealing with for 500 years.

At the heart of this story is Suzie’s blossoming relationship with Cleo, an 18 year girl finishing up school whom she met right after raping that girl in the bathroom stall (BTW: that girl pops up again later on, and we learn why exactly Suzie did what she did. Not to condone her actions at all, but it was not just sexual domination that drove our protagonist). It doesn’t take long for Suzie to fall madly in love with the naive but bright, young but strong, innocent but fearless Cleo. Cleo herself falls in love and leaves all that she has behind to follow the vampire she sees as a goddess. Along the way, there is plenty of blood drinking, both from the guys who kind of deserve it and those who do not. Oh yeah, lots of sex. But hey, that’s what two people do when they first fall in love, regardless of orientation.

I was enjoying this story very much until about two-thirds along the way. I really got into Suzie working for the private investigation in tracking down missing girls, and discovering a human trafficking scheme involving young women from Eastern Europe being forced to work as prostitutes in London. This is an issue I personally care about because it is horrifying that human trafficking is still being done, and the way the women are treated makes me both mad and sad. For those of you who’ve read my book, The Dark Proposal, you may recall there were brief moments where victims of human trafficking were depicted, but for very different reasons compared to Franklin’s book.

Anyway, I was enjoying this and hoping Suzie would emerge victorious in the end. But then there’s a part where she talks at great length about her history. I felt her doing so took away the momentum of the story, because it was gearing up for a big event, and I actually got bored reading about it. I know it was to help the reader understand where she was coming from and what drives her. But it turned the excitement down several notches.

By the end of the novel, I felt this was about a woman fighting for women’s freedom from brutal men who just so happened to be a vampire rather than vice versa. It is clear Suzie’s vampire status is second to that of her fighting for women’s freedom from brutal men, and that is definitely a different take on vampires in fiction. Unfortunately, it may confuse other readers on what to make out of Suzie. Is she a vampire? A sex-crazed lesbian? Or a woman who has dealt with and seen too many women suffer from patriarchy that she makes it her mission to get justice however she can?

Obviously, Suzie Kew cannot be put into a box and that is something not too many authors do with their main characters. Yeah, some may have villains with an apparent sweet side, but this protagonist cannot be pigeon-holed at all. Be prepared if you choose to read it so confusion won’t set in.

Overall, I liked Franklin’s writing style, how he structured his book (the chapters are not numbered, just named) and his exploration of topics that can make wood burn big time. This is a book that very different in a lot of ways, so do not expect this to be a conventional vampire/character study/lesbian love/social justice novel.

I finally finished Kushiel’s Chosen, the second installment of Jacqueline Carey’s series of novels about an alternative look at medieval Europe. I started reading in late September and was finally able to get through its nearly 700 pages. I would’ve been able to have finished this book sooner if there weren’t some problems I had with it, but I’ll get to that later.

For those who do not know, about 10 years ago, Jacqueline Carey released Kushiel’s Dart, which is about a courtesan named Phedrè nó Delaunay who lives in Terre d’Ange, which is actually France if you look at the map the book has at the beginning. Phedrè is an anguisette, someone who experiences pain for pleasure. She has a red mark in her left eye, which indicates Kushiel – a sort of deity in Terre d’Ange – has chosen her to be his instrument.

Anyway, Phedrè has been trained to be a courtesan by her foster father, Anafiel Delaunay. Because Terre d’Ange is a place where anything goes when it comes to love and sex, it is no big deal that she becomes a courtesan and goes around to aristocrats to be their play thing – in the BDSM sense. Kushiel’s Dart has a lot of BDSM scenes, featuring both men and women, but the follow-up doesn’t have as much.

But Phedrè is not only a courtesan – she is a trained spy. She soon uncovers a plot to overthrow the Queen by one of her patrons, the seductive Melisande Shahrizai, whom Phedrè has a love/hate relationship with. But before she could do anything to stop the plot, she is sold into slavery to the tribes of Skaldia – alias Germany – with her bodyguard, Joscelin, who eventually becomes her true love. Thus begins the journey into a totally different Europe with some supernatural moments, swashbuckling fights, the ups and downs of love, and plenty of political intrigue.

Find out more at Amazon.com

I read Kushiel’s Dart in 2008, and I took my sweet time getting around to its sequel. I enjoy Dart mainly because of the political intrigue and the many different cultures depicted in this world. The sex scenes were OK, but then again BDSM just isn’t my taste – especially since the BDSM here is hardcore. Phedrè gets hung upside down while chained up, cut up by use of a flechette – you know, all the good stuff. Basically, if Phedrè was simply handcuffed and/or spanked, that would’ve been tame compared by what she goes through.

I finally bought Kushiel’s Chosen during Borders’ liquidation sales in 2011, but got around to reading it in late September. Like it’s predecessor, this book was slow to start. It takes about 300 pages before the storyline actually gets anywhere. I was OK with that because there is a lot to digest. This is not a simple story. I like to say Jacqueline Carey’s Kushiel books are Game of Thrones meets 50 Shades of Grey (minus the poorly written fan fiction). Heads up: the term “game of thrones” is actually mentioned twice in Chosen! Ha!

By the time Phedrè, Joscelin and her three chevaliers head to La Serenissima – alias Venice – I was starting to get really annoyed. Not with the storyline, not with the writing which is unique, but with Phedrè herself. Maybe I didn’t notice it so much in the first book, but here she has very little likable traits. Altogether, I found Phedrè to be haughty, overconfident in her spying abilities, rude, and selfish. Whenever she came across as remorseful, I didn’t buy it too much. I think this was because she was also flat. I just didn’t feel her remorse or whatever humility she claimed she had. Flat is really the word that comes to mind when I think about Phedrè in this book.

Also flat are a lot of the other characters. Joscelin is just there for most of the book. The three chevaliers don’t seem to have distinct personalities and I couldn’t tell them apart. I would say the pirate Kazan Atrabiades was the most likable because he had a distinct personality, indicated by the way he spoke, which didn’t bother me so much. The villainess Melisande Shahrizai is someone to love to hate, but I also have to give her credit for being so cunning, sneaky and a literal slithering snake. She’s so good at playing the game of thrones (literally!), I found myself thinking, “well played, Melisande. Well played” toward the end. Not that I really wanted to think that, but I had to.

But Phedrè was a disappointment. Because of her, I seriously thought about putting down this book for good, hence why I took so long to finish Kushiel’s Chosen. But because I really wanted to find out where was Melisande, I carried on.

Eventually it was worth it. The story picked up, more cultures were explored and the big battle was exciting. The ending obviously leaves room for the third book, Kushiel’s Avatar, which I also have on my bookshelf. I will get to that later this year.

Overall, I did enjoy this book but the main character was unlikable. From what I heard, author Jacqueline Carey wasn’t given enough time to perfect this follow-up to her praised Kushiel’s Dart, so that might explain the flaws in this book. I hope she was given more time for the third one, or has found a way to work out Phedrè’s poor traits to make an interesting story.

So, I give this book 3/5. It wasn’t great, it wasn’t terrible – it was simply good.